Category: Ljubčo Georgievski

Ljubčo Georgievski: the VMRO was purely a Bulgarian revolutionary organization (Video)

Excerpts from an interview of Ljubčo Georgievski, former Prime Minister of the 'former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)', on the TV Show “Voice of the People” (21.09.2016), in which he points to the rarely emphasized fact that the historic revolutionary organization VMRO operated purely as a Bulgarian organization in areas with an undisputed Bulgarian population during the liberation movements in the Balkans.

"The VMRO was a secret revolutionary society that was active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its many incarnations struggled with two contradictory goals: establishing 'Macedonia' as an autonomous state on the one hand and promoting Bulgarian political interests on the other."

In the educational system of the 'Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' the VMRO is taught as being a wholly "ethnic Macedonian" revolutionary organization composed only of "ethnic Macedonians" fighting for the liberation of the geographic region of Macedonia. The Bulgarian nature of the organization is not a topic of discussion nor is it emphasised in the educational system or in public discourse.

Although both Bulgaria and the 'Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' commemorate the VMRO and its Bulgarian heroes equally, both countries dispute the historicity of the VMRO and the ethnicity of its heroes as presented by the other side.


In his early political career, Georgievski was a hard nationalist who founded the right wing VMRO-DPMNE and was the main instigator of initially promoting the pseudo-historical position that today's Slavic (formerly Bulgarian) inhabitants of the 'Former Yugoslav Republic of Maceodnia (FYROM)' are direct descendents of the ancient Macedonians - a group of ancient people who self-identified as Greek.

For over a decade, he has become a moderate and a voice of reason in the republic and has dropped his former ultra-nationalist views. Today he only accepts and promotes the Slavic - mainly Bulgarian - heritage of both the state and the nation of the FYROM.

As a gesture of goodwill towards Greece, Georgievski openly promotes the historically accurate position that ancient Macedonia and the modern region of Macedonia in Greece was always part of the history and culture of the Greeks which he states is undisputed by history and academia.

Georgievski is now the president of the pro-Bulgarian party VMRO-NP of the FYROM and in 2006, to prove his point that all Slavs in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are, in fact, of Bulgarian descent, he applied and was granted Bulgarian citizenship.

In 2007, he released his book "Слице към истината" ("Facing the truth") in Bulgaria. In it he reveals his attitude to "Macedonian identity" and the reality of a Bulgarian past in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

​Video Subtitles: Vladislav Perunović, Skopje, FYROM

​Sources: TV Sonce, Encyclopaedia Britannica

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